


The One Shot Jobs

by Stolen-Owl (PirateOwl)



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gen, Post-Finale, Pretzels, it varies by chapter, the Leverage team is a family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4510017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PirateOwl/pseuds/Stolen-Owl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short fics for Leverage.<br/>The Keeping In Touch Job: Different ways and reasons that the various team members keep in touch with each other. Set after the series finale.<br/>The Nightmare Job: When the team has nightmares, and they all do at some point, they handle it different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Keeping In Touch Job

Parker, Hardison, and Eliot all keep in touch with the Sophie and Nate after the later two retire.

At first they mostly call Sophie because, like when she was on her journey of self-discovery, they all want advice for grifting so they call the best grifter they know. She loves it because she gets the best of going legit with Nate while still being able to keep her hand in the game. She is no longer an actress in their jobs but she gets to be a kind of long distance director. Of course, they ask her about her theater too, and keep up with each other’s lives, but she is the one they call in the middle of a con.

It is Parker who calls Nate first. She never, ever calls him in the middle of a job, and she never will, because she knows he wants to be retired and she also knows he would come back if he thought they needed him. And if he comes back she doesn’t think he would be able to leave again. She is probably right. But after jobs she sometimes calls him to get his take on something, see how he would have handled certain parts of the job, see if he thinks she is doing alright, and maybe just a little bit to see if he is proud of her. He always is.

When Hardison calls Nate it isn’t about a con at all. Well, sort of. The lingering effects of one anyway. He calls to invite him to the second Annual Portland Vintage Car Show. And that’s how it goes with them. Hardison always calls about the normal things, about the brew pub, about Parker, about the rain in Portland, about his rivalry with another local pub (because of course he develops one.) The job is part of Hardison’s idea of normal, so it might come up occasionally, but generally only in passing. Mostly though, their conversations are shockingly normal.

Eliot doesn’t call Nate for a while. He too knows that Nate would come back if he thought they needed him and Eliot wants to let him go back to a normal life. It isn’t until he sees the news talking about a major car crash that killed several people right near Nate and Sophie’s new place that he calls, worried that it might have been them. It wasn’t, but it was enough to remind him to worry about them. He is the one most likely to make sure they are alright, warning them of storms in the area, keeping an eye on local violent crime.

And, while Eliot was the last to call, he is the first to visit their city, and more importantly all of the local criminal bosses. He makes it very clear that he will not tolerate any crimes that either target the Fords or place them in harm’s way at all. Crime goes down suspiciously rapidly in the area after that because most criminals decide it will be a lot safer and simpler to just operate elsewhere. The cops find this mystifying but a relief, especially because Sophie’s new theater is in what used to be a bad part of town. The mayor takes credit and calls it urban renewal but Sophie and Nate both suspect the truth. At some point Eliot insists on installing bulletproof glass in all the windows in case any of their old marks figure out where they live and decide to stop by. Just because they aren’t technically part of the team anymore doesn’t mean he is going to stop making sure they are safe.

Parker, Hardison, and Eliot go with Nate to opening night of all of Sophie’s shows. She is a much better director than actress so they even enjoy it.

It’s amazing how often they find a reason to be in each other’s cities really. Direct flights are so difficult to get and who really minds when the suspiciously long layover is in Nate and Sophie’s new city. And of course Sophie goes to all the plays that her old Portland theater group puts on, and Nate comes with her, and somehow they manage to extend it into a really long trip. And the number of jobs the team has found near the Fords’ new home is truly staggering. 

And of course they get together at Christmas. Every year they have a different gift rule, usually invented by Sophie, it can’t cost more than a certain amount, or it has to be made of a certain material, or can only come from a certain country, or has to be stolen. It turns into almost a game, which suits everyone very well. Eliot cooks of course, with unhelpful “assistance” from the rest of them, who mostly just lurk around the kitchen stealing food and completely ignoring his grumbled threats to not feed them. They create opportunities to see each other on and off other times throughout the year but Christmas is the only time they plan for ahead of time, the whole team, the whole family, together under one roof.


	2. The Nightmare Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the team has nightmares, and they all do at some point, they handle it different ways.

Crime is a largely nocturnal profession, so sleeping at normal person times is entirely optional for the Leverage Incorporated team. And that is even without any trouble sleeping.

Eliot claims to only sleep ninety minutes a day. It’s an absurd exaggeration on good days. On bad days, not so much. He has nightmares about the things he has done. After rough jobs he has nightmares about not being in time, not being able to save them. The solutions for the nightmares are different.

When he has nightmares about failing he goes to the briefing room and reviews security protocols. He uses the security cameras to make sure everyone is alright and makes plans for how to cover different situations. Then he goes to the gym to make sure he is fast enough, strong enough, just… enough to keep them safe next time.

The nightmares about the past are worse. He can’t simply banish them by reminding himself that they aren’t real because they are. So he cooks. It feels good to create something instead of destroy. It isn’t uncommon for him to cook breakfast for the team anyway, nightmares or not, but those mornings he cooks more food than they could possible need.

Parker notices, but doesn’t ask. Once, after a particularly deluxe breakfast, she sat on the counter while he cleaned and put away the knives. “I’m not gonna ask,” she said softly. He didn’t do her the discourtesy of pretending not to know what she was talking about. “But if you ever want to talk about it, you can.”

She is good to her word and never brings it up again. But on mornings when there is way too much breakfast for the three of them she goes out of her way to mention how good it is. He pretends it doesn’t help. It does.

When Parker has nightmares, about some of the worse foster homes she was in mostly, she just wants to get away. She grabs a blanket and a pillow and curls up in one of the air vents. She feels safe there. Sure, she is actually safe anywhere in the brewpub. The security systems Hardison installed would warn them of anyone trying to get in and Eliot lives right across the hall, willing and able to cause grievous bodily harm to anyone trying to break in, but the vents are her own private sanctuary. Hardison can always tell, even before they share a room, when she has had a rough night. He doesn’t try to talk to her about it. He knows she wouldn’t anyway. He lets her have her space, lets her come down when she’s ready. And she always does, just flops on the couch practically on top of him like nothing was wrong earlier.

Hardison never really had nightmares before he was buried alive. Now, when he wakes up in a panic, hyperventilating, he needs space. Not space from people, just space. He goes outside where there are no walls to feel like they are closing in around him.

He doesn’t mind company. If Eliot is in the kitchen he is happy to perch on the counter and watch him cook. Eliot grumbles about too many cooks in the kitchen but gives him samples of the food, which seriously undermines his complaints.

If Parker is awake, well, she is actually the one who accidentally discovered the best solution. She was already up when he went out to the roof for some fresh air because she enjoys a little night repelling sometimes. She invited him to join her. He was pretty sure he had reached his limit for terror for the night but she looked so excited that he couldn’t bear to turn her down. And somehow, it worked. Not only is it way more fresh air than he needed, but the more immediate terror completely replaces the nightmare. There is no possible way it should work but it does and she starts taking him repelling every time he has a rough night. Sometimes he thinks the cure just might be worse than the disease, but it works.

Nate’s nightmares are memories, mostly of the day Sam died. He doesn’t have them as often now as he used to. Sophie always wakes up when he does. She doesn’t say anything, just gets up with him. She pours a single glass of whiskey for both of them. Trial and error has taught her that it doesn’t get out of control when she drinks with him.

The next day he finds a job. Not necessarily on the scale he used to, when he was head of the best team of thieves, just something he can control. And if he can’t find a satisfactory job locally he pokes around to find out what case Sterling is working and solves it first, just to annoy him. Sophie helps of course. And she pointedly doesn’t point out that she knows exactly what Nate is doing.

If Sophie Devereaux, aka Annie Kroy, aka Felicity Shaw, aka Indira McAllister, aka Katherine Clive, aka Charlotte Prentiss, aka Laura Ford ever has nightmares no one knows about it. She lays very still beside Nate so she doesn’t wake him and waits for morning. She rises early, covers the dark circles under the eyes with concealer, puts on her makeup and a beautiful dress, and smiles a winning smile. Sophie is an actress and this is simply another stage.


	3. Pretzels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parker and Hardison celebrate their anniversary with pretzels.

The first time, Parker and Hardison think it must be a coincidence. A really weird, extremely coincidental coincidence.

It is the first anniversary of when they started dating and hot pretzels are the daily special in the brew pub. They don’t even discuss it, because there is no possible way for it to be anything other than a coincidence. But of course they both order pretzels.

And not just any pretzels. Really amazing pretzels, hot from the oven, with just the right amount of salt, and a beer cheese sauce available on the side. Or with cinnamon and sugar, the way Parker orders hers.

They had never mentioned the pretzel thing to Eliot so it had to be a coincidence. It had to be. Right?

 

* * *

 

“It’s not a coincidence,” Parker says. It is their second anniversary and hot pretzels are once again the brewpub’s daily special.

“It’s… How is that even possible? I never told him about pretzels.”

“Neither did I. They’re good pretzels,” she said taking a bite.

She tries to dip her cinnamon sugar pretzel in Hardison’s cheese sauce. Even his less than refined palate recoils at the thought of the combination. Hardison is just certain that Eliot would remove one or the other from the menu if he knew they were being combined like that. But Parker seems to like it so Hardison lets her dip the sweet pretzel into his cheese sauce, even though it leaves a little cinnamon sugar in the cheese.

“They are good pretzels,” he agrees. “But seriously, how are there pretzels on the menu, today of all days, two years in a row?”

Parker licks cinnamon and sugar and cheese off of her fingers while she ponders the questions.

“Isn’t it obvious,” she says finally. “Food makes Eliot feel stuff. That’s why he loves to cook.” She licks a strip of cinnamon sugar from her plate while she considers it. “So of course he notices when people have feelings about food.”

 


	4. Age of the Geek

Hardison didn’t come up with his catchphrase. He heard it, liked it, and claimed it.

He was not the most popular kid in school. He was a very much a geek, arguably over the line into being a nerd, well-liked by his teachers and not many others. He made up for that somewhat with his naturally friendly temperament, but even so he wasn’t most of the students’ favorite. 

The other geeks were nice enough most of the time but he didn’t fit the image of what a geeky high school kid should look like. He was black and in the minds of most of his very white fellow geeks that automatically made him a jock at best and a gangbanger at worst. He wore backwards baseball caps with Star Wars t-shirts. It didn’t match their image. And on top of that he was smarter than most of them, so they were a bit jealous too. The jocks didn’t want him because they could tell right away that he was a geek to his very core. Even so, he almost never got straight up picked on because he was tall and strong and nobody wanted to test whether he was a total nerd or not.

He didn’t go to his first prom. He didn’t have anyone to go with anyway, and told himself it was really because Nana couldn’t really afford a tux rental. He could always hack in somewhere, get himself on a prepaid list, but there the whole idea circled back around to not having a date.

“What you doin’ hidin’ out up here instead of goin’ to your prom?” Nana asked.

He shrugged, glancing up briefly, then back down at his computer screen.

“I know that shrug young man. Don’t you gi’me that shrug. If you don’t want to talk about it tha’s ok, but you can use your words to say so.”

“Stacy’s goin’ with the quarterback,” he said, just catching himself in time to keep from giving another shrug. Nana notices and smiled.

“You’ll get the last laugh and no mistake.”

“How?” Hardison asked a little petulantly. “He’s team captain. He’s got the girl.”

“And he’s got maybe a one in a million shot at any of that mattering for the rest of his life. What you’re good at don’t go ‘way after school. Don’t you know it’s the age of the geek?” Nana asked. “Well it is and don’t you forget it.

The next year he also didn’t go to prom but that time it didn’t bother him at all. He was busy hacking the Bank of Iceland. Age of the geek indeed.


End file.
